Monthly Archives: July 2012

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Every four years, Summer Olympics keep us on the edges of our seats. As the Opening Ceremony nears, excitement for the games reaches a fever pitch. KLRU is here to help tide you over.

Saturday, July 21 at 8pm: My Music, British BeatThis year’s Closing Ceremony aims to celebrate fact that music has been one of Britain’s strongest cultural exports over the last 50 years. Why wait for August? Tune in as My Music travels on location to London and around the UK to the place where the British Beat was born.

Thursday, July 26 at 9pm: Strong! In a few days, we get to see serious athletic glory. But what about all the hard work that goes into preparing for an Olympic competition? Strong! follows Cheryl Haworth as struggles to defend her champion status as her lifetime weightlifting career inches towards its inevitable end. Strong! chronicles her journey and the challenges this unusual elite athlete faces, exploring popular notions of power, strength, beauty and health.

Join KLRU and the Austin Public Library for free screenings on the first Tuesday of the month at the Windsor Park Branch Library (5833 Westminster Dr). Screenings will start at 7 p.m. with a discussion to follow each of the films. The next screening will be Arts In Context: Producing Light on August 7th. These events are free and open to the public. The filmmaker will be in attendance at this screening.

Arts In Context spends a month with Ballet Austin, as Artistic Director Stephen Mills and company produce a re-staging of the acclaimed Light/ Holocaust and Humanity Project. With unprecedented access to the dancers and staff on and off the stage, Producer/ Director Karen Bernstein and Cinematographer Deborah Lewis provide a unique look into production for Mills’ harrowing work on survival amidst a climate of indifference and hate.

KLRU expands the scope and diversity of the arts on television with a special presentation of Homecoming: Kansas City Symphony as part of the PBS Summer Arts Festival. Architect Moshe Safdie’s extraordinary new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts provides the stunning backdrop for a performance-documentary that profiles the Grammy Award-winning Kansas City Symphony, their vibrant artistic director and conductor Michael Stern, and the radiant, celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. A concert wrapped by documentary narratives, this special tracks DiDonato’s nostalgic return to her hometown — and her thrilling Kauffman Center debut — after a triumphant appearance with Plácido Domingo at The Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Homecoming: Kansas City Symphony is part of the PSB Summer Arts Festival and each week KLRU will present a local story to accompany the PBS program. Stay tuned after Homecoming: Kansas City Symphony for a look at Forklift Danceworks’ Solo Symphony. Using a 13-piece live ensemble, Solo Symphony tells the story of conductor Peter Bay. With original choreography and music, the performance explores the movement of conducting in both true-to-life and abstract ways.

The PBS Summer Arts Festival line-up, part of PBS’ ongoing commitment to arts content on-air and online, features films that celebrate the contributions of independent filmmakers including a behind-the-scenes profile of actor/playwright John Leguizamo, a film that chronicles a year in the life of talented teenage Mariachi musicians, a look at priceless museum collections and a concert documentary profiling a world-renowned mezzo-soprano. The Festival explores international arts, including a historic concert by four Cuban music greats and a journey into Islamic art narrated by acclaimed actress Susan Sarandon. Slated to run for seven weeks, an additional program will be announced at a later date.

As a first-generation American who struggled to learn English at an early age, Sonia is different than most successful professionals. Appreciating that difference has helped shape her career. Sonia talked to us about her life as a Social Worker for our Girls and Women Lead: Austin project.

Women and Girls Lead: Austin showcases extraordinary women and girls in Austin who are changing our community. Combining independent documentary film, television, new media, and global outreach partnerships, Women and Girls Lead amplifies the voices of women and girls acting as leaders, expands understanding of gender equity, and engages an international network of citizens and organizations to act locally and reach out globally.

Do you know a woman or girl who is making a difference in your world? Someone who embodies the characteritics of leadership or empowerment? She could be a teacher, doctor, student or mother. Nominate a Leader today!

The Queen has some surprising possessions. Queen & Country at 7pm Sunday explores some “peculiars of the crown”.

On Masterpiece Mystery! at 8 pm on Sunday Lewis and Hathaway are drawn into a world of virtual bullying, but very real murder, when Professor Miranda Thornton is found dead after her dating video is leaked onto a vicious website.

Often called the “Greenwich Village of Houston,” Montrose is charming, weird, artsy, wacky, Bohemian and entertaining. Montrose, Texas tells the story of one of the most colorful and legendary neighborhoods in Texas at 9:30 pm on Sunday.

Antique Roadshow at 7 pm on Monday features 1998 trip to the City by the Bay and find a modest-looking Eskimo hunting helmet with an estimated value that has swelled from its original $65,000 to $75,000 to $100,000 to $125,000.

In the series premiere of Market Warriors at 8 pm on Monday, four pickers head to Renningers Adamstown- a large indoor/outdoor flea market -to find midcentury modern items amid the Pennsylvania Dutch antiques.

Antiques Roadshow investigates the shocking heist of artifacts from the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society at 9 pm Monday.

Manifest Destiny at 10 pm Monday begins with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. As the sole superpower, the US under George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush finds itself in a series of small but unpredictable and deadly military actions.

On Michael Wood’s Story of England at 7 pm Tuesday historians track Kibworth’s 17th-century dissenters, travel on the Grand Union Canal and learn about an 18th-century feminist writer from Kibworth who was a pioneer of children’s books.

In the 10th season premiere episode of History Detectives at 8 pm Tuesday, Elyse Luray and Wes Cowan investigate whether they have found rock’s Holy Grail: the long-lost electric Fender Stratocaster Bob Dylan plugged in at the ’65 Newport Folk Festival.

Frontline at 9 pm Tuesday features students and teachers from West Philadelphia High School, a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia, defy expectations as they design and build two super-hybrid cars for international competition and compete for the chance to be part of a technological revolution.

On Story at 10 pm Tuesday has the creators of Con Air, Gone In Sixty Seconds, Hulk, Zombieland, and Machete debate what makes a great action movie.

At 7 pm Wednesday, in hour two Nature‘s Bears of the Last Frontier, Chris Morgan explores the world of black bears caught in the crossroads of urban development in Anchorage and the wilderness.

Accompany physicist and acclaimed author Brian Greene for NOVA at 8 pm and 9 pm on Wednesday for a mind-bending reality check and journey to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time and the universe.

As one of Country music’s premier singer/songwriters, Kenny Chesney has reigned as a chart-topper and award-winning favorite for music lovers and critics alike. The four-consecutive Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year graces the stage on Austin City Limits at 10 pm Wednesday and Friday with his classic hits from “Greatest Hits: Vol 2.”

Michael Morton talks about spending nearly 25 years on death row for a crime he did not commit: the 1986 murder of his wife, Christine Morton on Overheard with Evan Smith at 7 pm on Thursday.

Arts in Context at 7:30 pm on Thursday journey through time to tour some of the Austin’s most iconic Art Deco buildings.

The Art of Architecture: Houston at 8 pm Thursday on takes viewers on a journey through the extraordinary history, art and architecture of one of the top 10 tallest skylines the world.

On The Daytripper on 8:30 pm Thursday, Chet heads to Killeen to visit Fort Hood, play paintball, eat Hawaiian Food, and tasty BBQ.

POV at 9 pm Thursday offers a portrait of a Syrian leader who challenges the women of her community to live according to Islam, without giving up their aspirations.

Take a seat in the extraordinary new Kauffman Center for Homecoming Kanas City Symphony Presents JOYC at 9 pm Friday for performances by Grammy Award-winning musicians of the Kansas City Symphony, their vibrant artistic director/conductor Michael Stern and the radiant, celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato.

On Austin City Limits at 7 pm Saturday veterans and country music legends Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel join forces onstage in celebration of their collaborative LP, Willie and the Wheel.

An all new My Music at 8 pm Saturday features the first ever comprehensive 4-CD box set of all original British Invasion hits by the original British Invasion legends that define the British Rock Era of the 1960′s

Superstars of Seventies Soul Live at 9 pm Saturday is an exciting once-in-a-lifetime gathering with the legends of 1970′s Motown, R&B, Soul and Disco artists — all original performers, singing their greatest “Jammin Oldies” hits. Soul Diva Patti LaBelle hosts this special.

As we plan for the future of public broadcasting in the Austin area, we want our community’s input on some key issues. So we’re inviting you to be a part of KLRU’s Viewer Council.

Each month, we’ll be asking questions focusing on one topic to get your feedback. Your answers will be used to help us shape the programs we make and broadcast, the events we do in the community, our website and much more. Each survey will be a few short questions that you can complete anonymously.

This month’s survey is about your viewing habits in association with one of our channel streams. Your answers will help us program the channel to meet our community’s needs. Take the survey now

And sign up to be on our KLRU’s Viewer Council mailing list for notifications about future surveys.

Nature: White Falcon, White Wolf, 7 pm
On Canada’s remote Ellesmere Island, where June is spring, July is summer and August is already autumn, the race is on for two remarkable species to raise their families. The white gyr falcon is enormous, the largest and most powerful falcon in the world. Yet last summer, the nesting falcon pair here failed to raise any young. The rare Arctic wolves rely on every member of the pack to chase and bring down the prey that keeps them alive. Last year was good to them, and they raised three cubs. But for the wolves and the falcons, as well for as the snowy owls, musk oxen, lemmings, Arctic foxes and hares who share this fragile ecosystem with them, fortunes are always precarious.

Nature: Bears of the Last Frontier, 7pm
Chris Morgan explores the world of black bears caught in the crossroads of urban development in Anchorage and the wilderness. This is a new normal for bears and for their human neighbors. Some bears are so comfortable living in urban surroundings that their primary habitat is a golf course. In residential areas, bears frequently raid garbage bins and birdfeeders for easy snacks. But these behaviors are less than ideal for bears and residents alike. Morgan heads north out of Anchorage to Denali National Park, where the mountains loom over treeless plains and bears get by on a diet of thousands of berries a day.

Nova: The Fabric of the Cosmos “What is Space?”, 8pm
Space. It separates you from me, one galaxy from the next and atoms from each other. It is everywhere in the universe. But to most of us, space is nothing, an empty void. Well, it turns out space is not what it seems. From the passenger seat of a New York cab driving near the speed of light to a pool hall where billiard tables do fantastical things, Brain Greene reveals space as a dynamic fabric that can stretch, twist, warp and ripple under the influence of gravity.

Nova: The Fabric of the Cosmos “The Illusion of Time”, 9pm
Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet, ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong? In search of answers, Brian Greene takes us on the ultimate time traveling adventure, hurtling 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past.

America’s top gumshoes are back for a 10th season. Wesley Cowan, independent appraiser and auctioneer; Gwendolyn Wright, historian and professor of architecture, Columbia University; Elyse Luray, independent appraiser and expert in art history; Dr. Eduardo Pagan, professor of history and American studies at Arizona State University; and Tukufu Zuberi, professor of sociology and the director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania leave no stone unturned as they travel around the country to explore the stories behind local folklore, prominent figures and family legends.

From the producers of Antiques Roadshow, the hit PBS series and the forerunner of television’s popular antiques and collectibles genre, comes a new adventure for treasure seekers: Market Warriors.

Premiering Monday, July 16, at 8pm (in between Antiques Roadshow at 7 and 9), Market Warriors follows antiques pickers — Bob, John, Kevin, and Miller — on a nationwide treasure hunt, scouring flea markets and antiques shows for vintage valuables with an eye toward selling their finds for profit at auction. Over the course of 20 one-hour episodes, viewers will get to know the pickers, enjoy an up-close look at the fierce competition and obstacles they face in the marketplace, and make their best guesses about who will come out ahead at the end of the competitions.